The progress on F Javier Gutiérrez’s remake of The Crow, starring Luke Evans, has been slow to say the least, but with filming reportedly set to start in the Spring, one thing it does have is the full support of the comic’s creator James O’Barr.

Korsgaard’s Commentary (via Arrow In The Head) spoke to the writer about what exactly changed his mind about the reboot, which he had previously been dead set against, and O’Barr explains that it’s not a remake of the film, but a re-imagining of the book.

“[Gutiérrez] told me ‘I don’t want to remake that film, that film is perfect as it is. I want to do your book, literally page-for-page adaptation.’ That’s what changed by mind, that it’s not a remake of the original film, or cashing in on the cult status of Brandon Lee, it’s that Gutiérrez wants to go back to the source material, which if you’ve read the book and seen the film, while the movie has the right feel and the right flavor of the book, probably only 40% of the book made it into the movie. That got me intrigued – the idea of adapting it from page 1 and going from there, including a lot of the darker or stranger elements of the comic dropped from the original film.”

“…we’re not remaking the movie, we’re readapting the book. My metaphor is that there is a Bela Lugosi Dracula and there’s a Francis Ford Coppola Dracula, they use the same material, but you still got two entirely different films. This one’s going to be closer to Taxi Driver or a John Woo film, and I think there’s room for both of them – part of the appeal of the Crow comics after all is that they can tell very different stories after all.”

He also points out that Luke Evans will be playing Eric, but he won’t be playing Brandon Lee’s Eric Draven.

“Brandon Lee was a friend, and I’d never do anything to hurt his legacy. I’d also remind them that Eric Draven was a creation of the movie – if you read the comic, Eric and Shelley never have their last names revealed. Hopefully, this is one area the new movie being more faithful to the comic will come into play, and Eric won’t be going by Eric Draven in the new film. Luke Evens may play Eric, but Brandon Lee will forever be Eric Draven.”

The interview has plenty more details about his preliminary discussions with the director and star, the degree of control he’ll have over the movie (plenty, from the sound of it), how he feels about the crappy sequels, and his hopes for the soundtrack (actual Joy Division songs!) and is well worth a read.

How are we feeling about this new version of The Crow? It feels like we’ve been living with the threat of it forever. At this point, with a strong actor cast and the support of O’Barr, we just want to see what it looks like. Although we’ll forever be disappointed that Nick Cave’s script will never get made. That would have been fun.